Apple Publishes Keynote XML Schema

grouchomarxist writes "Apple has published a technote on the XML file format (APXL schema) used by their new presentation application Keynote. They've also created a mailing list for those interested in writing Keynote tools." I am so there.

Comments

Adapt Axpoint to Keynote?

[Void]

Maybe one should fork the excellent-but-still-buggy-and-incomplete AxPoint system to be keynote compatible. For those that don't know axpoint: it's a perl module that generates nice PDF presentations from an xml file...

Re:Adapt Axpoint to Keynote?

[renard]

Converting xml to xml is a whole lot easier than xml to pdf... :)

Exactly the point - wouldn't it be nice to have an open-source tool that could do it for you?

This way you could convert Keynote presentations to PDF, without needing to have a functional copy of Keynote around. Keynote exports to PDF (so they say) but it's not open-source, nor does it run (yet) on any environment other than OS X.

-renard

Re:Adapt Axpoint to Keynote?

[WatertonMan]

Note that many people have noted that Keynote -> PowerPoint with embedded PDFs doesn't work too well. It tries and scale/compress the PDF in a way so that you loose most of your resolution and get a very fuzzy and blurry image. I wonder if this is a bit of a workaround (assuming such a project was written)

Oh - btw - for those with this problem. Make sure embedded graphics are saved as jpg or gif rather than pdf and the problem isn't that bad.

Re:Is this unique?

[Draoi]

Not that I'm aware of. However, there's nothing to stop you importing an existing .ppt file into Keynote & barfing it back out as the now-published xml file. Instant Powerpoint standardiser ... :-)

Re:Is this unique?

[chipset]

There's just one problem. The improt routine of KeyNote is not even close to being perfect. Every time I import one of the PPt presentations from work to use on my Mac, I spent 20 minutes cleaning things up. Some images don't come in, some things are changed, bullet points, etc.

It certainly seems doable, but once it gets into Keynote, let the tweaking begin before you save it/export it.

Chipset

link

[bill_mcgonigle]

You got some gremlins in your URL.

AxPoint

While I'm here:
Sample output
Source File

The big picture

[Aram Fingal]

I wonder if Keynote is just the first of a new suite to replace AppleWorks and if XML will make possible what OpenDoc failed to do. That is, make a fully modular office suite where you can mix and match, say a word processor from one developer and a spreadsheed from another and still have them work together as if they were integrated.

OmniOutliner already exports to Keynote via XML. That's a good sign.

Re:Is this unique?

[Draoi]

You can export from KeyNote as either Quicktime, Powerpoint or PDF. Theoretically, you can import a .ppt file and export it back out again (kinda like those English->German->English babelfish pranks). Re-read into Powerpoint & see what went weird in the translation. That way, you'll have an idea what to expect.

If you don't have Keynote, send me one of your small powerpoint files & I'll send you back a Keynoted .ppt one just for fun ....

Re:Is this unique?

[Llywelyn]

I haven't really played with the PowerPoint export, but the PDF export I haven't had any problems with.

The QuickTime version isn't quite there, though that seems to be a problem with quicktime and not a problem with the export.

Re:Is this unique?

[tbmaddux]

The improt routine of KeyNote is not even close to being perfect. Every time I import one of the PPt presentations from work to use on my Mac, I spent 20 minutes cleaning things up.

You say from "work" to your "Mac." Are you using Windows at work? I ask because I have noticed the same thing going Mac PowerPoint (any version from 98 to X) to/from Windows PowerPoint (any version from 97 to XP). Particularly with the way animations in the page were set up, and of course Windows Powerpoint doesn't have the sweet Quicktime transitions (that's right, Mac PowerPoint looks better).

Anyhow, for that reason it might not be Keynote's fault at all, since they probably tested to get it to work like Mac PowerPoint.

Re:Don't replace AppleWorks...

[PetWolverine]

...replace Office. AppleWorks is a very different application from the various Offices, being far more integrated as one application. Hopefully Apple will either update AppleWorks to where it can compete in features with Office, while keeping the existing paradigm, or if they create several new applications as you suggested, those new apps will replace not AppleWorks, but Office. It would be nice, for those of us who like the power of Office, to have an Apple product available so we could avoid endorsing Macrosquash any more than possible, but for people who prefer the integration of AppleWorks, that product's death would be very unfortunate.